


To Fix the Broken

by ValmureEld



Series: Venom Was a Good Film Fight Me [6]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hearts, Hurt/Comfort, Medical, Medicine, Nightmares, Other, PTSD, Post Movie, Sharing a Body, cardiology, discussions of trauma, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-09-15 11:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16932477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValmureEld/pseuds/ValmureEld
Summary: Eddie wasn't the only one left with PTSD from the battle with Riot, but he was the only one out of the two of them who knew how to deal with it. When Venom starts having attacks of his own, Eddie struggles to help his symbiote heal. Trouble is, other people are still watching Eddie Brock, and sometimes more than two lives can get tangled up together when there's damage involved.





	1. Diagnosis

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so the premise of this fic was exactly what the first half of the description says, but then my brain and my friend (Thanks again BlueNeutrino) ran away with the concept and now I have a multi-chapter fic around all of this planned with like, a whole arc and a little girl and everything. 
> 
> So here goes.

When Venom first melded with Eddie Brock, Eddie Brock was probably in a pretty near constant state of tachycardia.

His average heartbeat was 135, and ‘resting’ did not really factor into truthful vocabulary. Venom eating forty percent of Eddie’s heart muscle really didn’t help things, either.

Now granted, he put it back. Or stimulated Eddie’s body into almost supernaturally developing new muscle, but the initial few weeks they were together were nothing short of monstrously stressful on Eddie’s cardiovascular system.

After the chaos died down and they got a routine in and figured out how many calories they needed (and what percentage needed to be meth dealers), Eddie’s body stabilized and finally took a breath.

Then it began to strengthen. A combination of Venom learning his host and Eddie’s body naturally responding to an increase in activity, good chemicals, and real sleep saw Eddie actually putting on a couple of pounds of muscle and feeling fatigued far less. His color was better, his eyesight actually came back from the decay it had been suffering from long nights in front of his computer screen, and he almost never noticed his heartbeat anymore.

Which was a luxury after he’d suffered spells of being so aware of the hummingbird that had replaced his heart that he felt nauseous.

All things considered, with his apartment cleaned up and his new job secure, Eddie Brock was feeling pretty amazing. Especially when the PTSD nightmares from Riot started to get less frequent.

He was confused, then, when almost six months after Riot and Drake and everything--he woke up in a horrible state of anxiety for no discernable reason.

A horribly lightheaded combination of hyperventilation and high tension woke him up and he jerked up in a scramble, pulling himself out of his sheets like they were sentient. Chest heaving and heart absolutely pounding, Eddie sat in the middle of his bed with his knees bent and his shoulders hunched, staring into the dark and trying to understand what had sent his body into such a state of fight or flight. He swallowed and gasped another breath, rubbing at his sternum like his heart could be calmed down by stroking it.

He would chalk it up to a PTSD spell triggered by a dream, but there were two things wrong with that. One: he always remembered dreaming. Two: Venom was always the one to talk him awake and almost smother him once he was conscious.

His symbiote was silent.

“Venom?” he croaked, squinting at his side table and reaching for the half-drunk can of orange crush he’d left there the night before. It wasn’t water but it was better than a beer so he went with it.

He drank the flat soda in two swallows and crunched the can, shifting his weight to sit on the edge of the bed while he wiped at his mouth with a fumbling hand. Venom still wasn’t answering him, which was strange because Eddie could distinctly sense that the alien was very much present and very much awake.

“Hey, what happened to that freaky tongue of yours? Why aren’t you talking to me?” he asked, frowning down at his chest and thumping at the side of his ribs like someone trying to beat a bad piece of technology into working again.

“I can feel you hanging out by my liver, what’s going on?”

**_Nothing._ **

Eddie raised an eyebrow and snorted. “Nothing? Really? That’s like….the equivalent of the silent treatment with you.”

**_Go back to sleep, Eddie._ **

“Wow, what did I do to you?”

 ** _We aren’t going to talk about it so go to sleep,_** Venom snapped, his tone creeping along Eddie’s bones like angry insects. Eddie shuddered and made a face.

“Fine, piss off to you too,” he muttered, pulling his legs back into the bed and laying down. His body had settled abnormally quickly with no conscious memories to prolong the attack, but that didn’t make him feel any better about not understanding where it had come from. He bunched his pillow up under his head and shoved it into a comfortable spot with his arm, staring at the wall.

Eventually, he closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep much.

Venom was fine and demanding bacon loudly the next morning, acting like nothing had happened at all. For about a week, everything was the same it had been for months. They bantered, they ate bad guys, they went to work and Eddie continued to lock horns with people who had a lot more money and a lot less morality than he and his human-eating symbiote did.

Then it happened again. And again. And one more time a month later. That time, he and Venom got into a fight about it.

“What are you not telling me?!” he demanded, hitting his side hard enough to bruise. He knew it jarred Venom though, so he didn’t care. He was too irritated. “You’d better not be chewing on something important again.”

 ** _You had a nightmare,_** Venom snapped back testily. _**Why are you angry at me?**_

“Because I didn’t have a nightmare and there’s no other explanation for why my body is having periodic night-time freak outs other than the parasite living in it!”

Venom manifested and _hissed_ at Eddie’s use of 'parasite', but he was too angry to care. His sleep was messed up and he knew Venom was doing _something_ , he just couldn’t pinpoint what.

Under his irritation about it he was, quite frankly, hurt. This wasn’t Venom just screwing around and tripping things accidentally or being mischievous, he was once again scrambling vital systems. After thinking the warring “I” had actually become “we” the perceived sabotage stung.

They didn’t talk for a few days after that, and there were no more attacks.

It was only when things finally started to get back to normal that the attack came back, and that time Eddie woke up to feel Venom absolutely _shaking_.

“Woah okay, no more avoiding me what in the world is going on with you!?” he demanded, sitting blearily up and pressing a hand to his chest.

Venom quivering all through his torso left him feeling unsettled and wrong inside but something was telling him that this wasn’t Venom just screwing around. He got the distinct and terrifying impression that it was involuntary.

**_Nothing…._ **

The voice trembled too and Eddie’s brow twisted in alarm. This time, his adrenaline was entirely self-induced. “V, you never react like this to my nightmares what is--”

That’s when it clicked. “They’re not my nightmares, are they?” he asked very softly, pressing his palm more firmly against his chest and slowly shifting to cross his legs. “Venom? They’re not my nightmares.”

The length of silence told Eddie all he had to know, and he suddenly felt like the lowest piece of dirt for being angry with Venom the past several weeks.

“V, why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, his voice pained. “I could have helped--you’ve been helping me with mine, why are you hiding yours? You’ve been having nightmares all this time and it’s causing my body to panic, isn’t it?”

Slowly, looking exhausted and ashamed, Venom pooled out of Eddie’s stomach and hips to sit in his lap. His head was bowed, his eyes mostly closed.

_**We did not want you to think we are still a loser….** _

“Hey,” Eddie said, reaching out to pet across Venom’s head and down into the inky warmth of him. “I’m having them too, and it’s not stupid to have nightmares after what we went through. Have you been having them all this time? Since Riot?”

Venom wouldn’t make eye contact with him, turning his head away and sinking a little lower. The tendrils slunk across Eddie’s legs with a reluctancy that was very unlike him.

**_No. They are…..recent._ **

Eddie’s brow furrowed, shaking his head once. “I don’t get it, bud. What’s setting them off--do you know?”

 _ **We never had nightmares...before Earth.** _Venom said, finally looking up at Eddie. He blinked slowly, and Eddie could see and feel the weight of exhaustion and confusion pulling the symbiote apart.

“So you don’t know how to deal with them, do you?” he asked, the sympathy only growing. If Venom had no real concept of nightmares (unlike every human who’d learned how to deal with them since childhood) what was he supposed to do?

Thinking back on it, even though Venom had helped to deal with Eddie’s nightmares, Eddie realized it had been 99% biological. He reacted to the chemicals and physical panic Eddie’s body produced, not so much the thoughts that caused them. Venom would reassure that the damage from Riot was repaired, but all the psychological healing Eddie had been doing was mostly self-pursued.

“Venom, we gotta figure out what’s causing these or they’re not gonna stop,” he said softly, stroking his fingers through Venom’s body. “Trust me. Humans have lots of experience with nightmares.”

**_We...are tired, Eddie._ **

Eddie pressed his lips together but he could take a hint, so he just nodded and gave Venom another reassuring stroke. “Okay. Okay buddy just...get some sleep and we’ll figure things out in the morning.”

The only problem was, no matter how carefully Eddie tried to bring it up, Venom dodged the question. The spells happened two more times and then Venom’s behavior changed radically--he started staying awake all night and sleeping when Eddie was awake and working. Just about the only time they were conscious together was when they were feeding on live people.

Eddie was a strange mix of angry and worried. He was angry that Venom was choosing to retreat instead of let him help, and he was worried about whatever was upsetting Venom badly enough to go a complete 180 of his normally loud, invasive personality and spend his time...surviving.

He remembered what that kind of mental state was like and he didn’t want to leave Venom stuck there.

After three weeks of avoidance treatment from his other, he finally decided to text Anne.

“So, what do you mean he’s acting strange?” Anne asked, frowning lightly at him over her coffee while they sat outside on the diner patio.

“I mean he’s not talking almost at all, except when we fight,” Eddie said, holding one finger up to show that there would be more “and he’s taken to sleeping while I’m awake and being awake while I’m asleep.” He leaned forward, his expression earnest. “It’s worrying me, Anne. He’s asleep right now, curled up in here,” he all but whispered, gesturing across his chest “and he’s not getting up until like ten or eleven when I crash. It has to be something to do with him having nightmares, but instead of him letting me help him with them, he’s managing to avoid me even while living inside my body!”

Anne made a face that was part disturbed part conceding. “Okay so, let’s think about this. You said Venom hasn’t had nightmares before now, right?”

Eddie shook his head. “No. I don’t think he has a concept for what they are, or didn’t until me. When I first had some after Riot and Drake, he couldn’t understand what was going on. It took a lot of explaining and still I don’t know that he more than just accepted it.”

“So he has no concept for nightmares. Maybe even for trauma,” Anne said, her eyes lighting with the realization. “Whatever he’s processing at night is pretty intense for your body to react like that, so it is probably tied to Riot.”

She tapped at her cup, thinking for a moment before glancing at Eddie with a worried expression. “Honestly, I think Venom has PTSD and doesn’t know how to deal with it. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of...being that wants to admit he doesn’t have an answer so he’s embarrassed and strung out from the stress of whatever’s bothering him.”

Eddie thudded back in his chair, his spine hitting the back a little too hard as he stared at the table and blinked. “Yeah that makes perfect sense. Part of me probably knew after I realized he was having nightmares but I was just so mad at him for avoiding me about it, it was easier to just think he was being stubborn.”

He squinted at the table, turning his cup around in a nervous tick. “And honestly it’s hard to picture something like Venom being traumatized, you know?” He sighed, his chest falling harshly with the weight of it. “Some investigative reporter I am, huh?”

“Yeah, well, I’m a lawyer. I’m good at making people see what I want them to see,” she teased gently, stirring at her coffee. Her expression sobered a little and she set her spoon aside.

“Seriously though Eddie, I think you both have PTSD. You just have the knowledge to deal with yours and Venom….doesn’t. This is one thing you share that’s still totally different. Venom experienced what happened to you both in a different way so he’s going to have different triggers. You just need to convince him to open up to you enough that you can help him process what they are.”

Eddie rubbed at his forehead, leaning into the table and propping his chin on his hand. “Great. So far I can’t find a pattern, other than it happened way later than you’d expect if he has PTSD from Riot, and it’s only happening at night in his sleep. Which is, you know, how nightmares work.”

Anne wrinkled her nose and sipped at her coffee, visibly thinking. “Well, what about the days that it happens? Was there something different in the room--the weather, the temperature, the kind of…….crime fighting you did the night before?”

Eddie shook his head. “No, nothing that I can think of it’s just…..totally random. Other than it usually seems to drop right in the middle of a really good week which is just rotton on karma’s part. You’d think after what happened to both of us we’re paid in advance on the karma front.”

Anne sighed. “Yeah...can’t say I disagree there.”

Eddie thought for a couple of days about how to make Venom talk to him, which in and of itself was darkly funny since not so long ago he could barely get the symbiote to shut up.

In order to catch his other, Eddie decided to take the next day off and stay up late watching Netflix. It had been so long since he’d watched that he spent more time shuffling through the bad selections and wondering how they got worse than actually watching anything by the time Venom woke up.

**_Eddie?_ **

Eddie sat up abruptly, tapping the spacebar and pausing Daredevil half way through a clip of Matt beating some new thug senseless. The back of his mind thought about how he and V would have just eaten the guy.

Fisk especially. They would have eaten Fisk.

He closed the laptop and put it on the bedside table.

“Hey, V. We gotta talk, man.”

Venom rippled unhappily but it felt like a lot of the fight to hide had gone out of him. Quietly, he bled in an inky pool onto the bed and held his head up.

“I know you don't want to tell me about these nightmares but I promise you, I am not going to give you a hard time about them,” Eddie began, trying to keep his voice gentle. He really didn’t want Venom pulling away again.

“I really think you have PTSD, Venom. It's a condition where something really awful that happened sticks in your head and just keeps attacking you even if the thing is long over. I have it from Riot, and you…” he swallows a lump and his brow twists, not even wanting to think about it. “You burned alive, V,” he whispered. “Something is bringing all that back and I want to help you get free of it.”

Venom was quiet and unusually still, only his ever-present wavering there to keep him from looking like a mournful oil slick.

Eddie gave him time. Then, finally:

**_And you died._ **

The statement was so quiet, so heavy, so profoundly broken, that Eddie felt stricken.

“That's what's eating you?” he asked.

_Not the burning? Not the fight with his own kind or the being ripped apart and experimented on. My death._

**_We went back to you, we found you and you were warm and you were pliant but you were silent._ **

Venom was spreading slowly closer and Eddie reached down, threading his fingers into Venom's substance. Venom reciprocated, twining his tendrils around Eddie's fingers and up his wrist to bury roots in around the brachial artery.

**_I did not know if I could fix you. Your lungs, your heart...they were in shreds, Eddie. Everything was destroyed and you were warm but you were dead._ **

Death, to a symbiote, was no abstract, fancifully looming thing. Venom's sense of life was a powerful ability that Eddie was only beginning to understand, and so his statement broke Eddie’s heart.

'Dead' meant so much more than a quiet heart and a lack of breath to a symbiote.

 ** _Your brain was fading by the time I reached you,_** Venom continued sadly, and Eddie was aware of the strangest sensation as Venom caressed the back of his neck, warm tendrils circling around his spine and brain stem. **_So much going dark…_**

The realization hit Eddie like a brick wall. “You've never been inside a dead host before.”

It wasn't a question. Of course Venom hadn't, because until Eddie, he really was a parasite. If a host died he'd taken another and there was no repercussion or regret. Just inconvenience.

Venom had gone against his very nature by not only entering Eddie's dying body, but by expanding great energy to heal and revive it.

Eddie could not speak for a long time, his eyes prickling and his throat tight.

“Why, V?” he asked at last, his voice strained as he wiped at his eyes. “Why is this coming back on you now?” he was less asking Venom himself and more voicing his distress at the unfairness of it, so when Venom answers he was surprised.

**_I am afraid you are dying again._ **

He blinked. Frowned.

“What? Why?”

Venom pulled in on himself, looking for all the world like he was self conscious.

**_Your heart...our heart does not beat like it used to. Especially at night._ **

Eddie blinked. Thought about that for a moment. “Like it used to?”

**_It is slow, now Eddie. So...so slow I wake in the spaces of its silence._ **

Well, that was startlingly poetic for an alien who liked to pile heads in corners and for a moment Eddie wondered if Venom spent parts of his nights awake scrolling through Shakespeare or something on his phone.

“Wait you're having attacks at night because my heart is slowing down?” Eddie asked, hand on his chest as he tried to understand. Venom looked up at him, his lips closing sadly over far too many teeth.

**_When it slows, we get anxious. We do not want to come back again to silence. Ever._ **

At least the swapped behavior finally made sense, as did the pace of the attacks. When he was stressed or awake his heart was beating fast enough Venom didn't feel like he had to keep an eye on it.

“Venom…” he said, his expression twisted with sympathy. “My heart wasn't supposed to beat as fast as it was when we met. I was a wreck, probably on the edge of a few kinds of meltdowns--cardiac included. My heart slowing down finally is a good thing.”

Venom seemed to consider that, and Eddie leaned back, resting his shoulders against the headboard.

“Listen, humans only have so many heartbeats, so the further apart they are the longer we can live, in theory,” he explained, leaning over to grab at his laptop. He overbalanced a little and Venom grabbed his free arm, helping pull him back to upright. “Thanks.” He opened the screen, clicking in his password as Venom climbed his arm to rest on his shoulder.

Eddie opened Google and started pulling up articles, Venom’s opalescent eyes peering down to read with him. “Look, there is a lot of medical research on this. Unless something is seriously wrong, most of the time a slower heartbeat at rest--especially when the person is asleep, is a good sign. It means the heart is strong enough to get the blood where it needs to go with fewer beats. Here--” he tapped the spacebar on a youtube rendition of a 3D heart model, pointing around the walls and chambers.

“See? All the heart has to do is get enough blood to the brain and everything else to keep them alive. If it’s strong and the person isn’t moving much you can get the same job done with less work.”

Venom blinked slowly, easing his way down Eddie’s chest to settle across his thigh and arm in a warm blanket. He reached out tendrils and Eddie took the hint, moving his hand so Venom could use the trackpad.

For a while he perused the articles and videos in silence, part of his mass tightening around Eddie’s wrist. Eddie stroked a reassuring thumb across Venom’s surface, knowing he was keeping track of his pulse.

“I’m okay, V,” he said gently. “Better than I was before. That really fast heartbeat I had when we met wasn’t healthy and honestly it made me feel sick. Remember when you damaged my heart?” he asked, though there was no accusation in the question. “It had to beat a lot faster because it wasn’t moving as much blood with each pump. Now that it’s healthy again, it can rest more often. Make sense?”

Eddie hoped Venom was listening, but the symbiote only continued to hold his wrist and scroll through articles in silence. Mostly he watched Venom for signs of feeling reassured, but when he did glance up to the screen again he twitched to try and stop his symbiote before Venom could click the link. The page loaded anyway and Eddie sighed.

“V, I don’t have athlete’s heart.”

**_You haven’t seen your heart._ **

He blinked. “No….”

Venom sunk down, his mass oozing across the keyboard. He just looked...tired.

“What would help, Venom?” he asked, hesitating a moment before mentioning the first thing that had crossed his mind. “Do you want us to go see Dan?”

Venom was quiet for an even longer moment, slowly reaching up to close the lid of the laptop. As the room went dark, he felt and only partially saw Venom climb back up his chest and settle in an inky, weighted blanket across his sternum to drape and then pull firmly around his ribs. He leaned his head back and rest his hand on top of the mass, rubbing his thumb back and forth gently.

For the rest of that night, Venom stayed between Eddie’s heart and his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok but really please consider what it must have been like to be inside a dead host. Or one that was fast approaching permanently dead.


	2. Second Opinion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan looks Eddie over and probably needs a vacation afterward.

“Okay so….explain what _exactly_ you want from me.”

Dan looked ever so mildly concerned, his focus on Eddie but his body language showing he was half expecting Venom to suddenly show as well.

Eddie took a deep breath, putting both hands up in a pre-placation. “I need you to get me into the hospital off the record, and keep me overnight for observation. And possibly run cardiology tests on...us,” he finished awkwardly, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.

Dan blinked. “On….us so….you and…” he gestured, and Eddie nodded.

“Venom.”

“Right. Venom. You need me to run tests on you and Venom off the books. Eddie, look I’m happy to look you over and I get the off the books thing, but I’m a human surgeon not a xenobiology scientist. I don’t know what to look for when I’m looking at an…” he gestured “us.”

“Then look at me,” Eddie said, putting his hands on his chest. “Just me, study me like you would any human patient. I need you to just, make sure Venom put everything back the way it was before he got here.”

Dan blinked, sighed, pinched his nose and then crossed his arms. Eddie winced. All four of those gestures was never s good sign.

“Eddie, let me just get this totally clear: Venom is still inside you, right? Like, right now. And he can hear me.”

“Yeah. Yes. He is. And can.”

“Ok so….you have a sentient alien being living, with your blessing, inside your body.”

“Yeah.”

“Which means things can’t be the way they were before he got here because even at a molecular level that’s going to shift things.” Dan sat down, looking somewhat distressed. “Eddie, listen I really want to help but a million misdiagnosis could happen because you have an entire corporeal organism threaded through your body’s systems. Humans are already so complex we’re still discovering layers and things we didn’t even know we had. Adding an entirely other branch of unclassified biology is just--”

“Dan!” Eddie said, waving his hand and snapping his fingers to get the surgeon’s attention. He was visibly flustered, maybe even approaching overwhelmed. “Listen I just need you to look at me like any patient, and tell me if my heart is better. As a start. You could tell before it was atrophied, I need you to tell me that it’s not anymore. Can we begin there?”

Dan rubbed at his temples, looking at Eddie with no small amount of concern. “We can start there, but I need you to answer what I ask you during these tests, and before, truthfully. No matter what the truth is, ok?”

Eddie gestured. “Open book, Dan.”

“Alright, well, before we do anything, you need to tell me why you specifically asked for overnight observation. What do you think is happening at night that you need me to watch you for an entire set of sleep cycles?”

 ** _You cannot tell him_** , Venom said suddenly, loud in Eddie’s skull. Panicked. He had been nervous enough about telling Eddie that he was scared, he clearly didn’t want Dan or anyone else to know.

“Hey I promised,” he assured Venom, directing the phrase also at Dan, who looked uncertain.

“Ok, so. Why, Eddie?”

He rubbed at his chest, trying to soothe his symbiote. The pleasant pressure on the nerves lacing his sternum and collarbones seemed to go straight through Venom and help him quiet. Dan eyed the gesture, as though already concerned about what he’d find if he peeled back Eddie’s ribcage to look at the heart that had so recently been well on its way to dying.

“Because I keep waking up in these cold sweats, heart going a mile a minute just want to see if there’s anything besides my dreams causing them. I know I have PTSD from--” he gestured “everything, but that I know how to handle. I just need to know if there’s anything re-wired in here that’s gonna make it worse,” he said, patting at his chest. He felt Venom push back in a barely noticeable ripple beneath his palm.

Dan raised an eyebrow but he bowed his head once. “Okay well, I would like to get another look at your heart after everything. We just need to do it more carefully and unfortunately a lot of imaging software relies on the soundwaves your buddy doesn’t like.”

“What can we do?”

“Start with a stethoscope, then put you through a full ekg test. Then we can wire you up and have you sleep here, if you really want to.”

Eddie nodded, bowing his head once. “Thank you, Dan. Really.”

Dan sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “Yeah, you’re welcome Eddie. I know how Anne feels about you and I’m never one to turn down someone asking for help so--” he gestured. “Let’s make sure you’re back from the edge for good.”

One week later, Eddie and Venom showed up at the hospital and met Dan at a side door.

The EKG test came back strong and Dan heard nothing abnormal through the stethoscope--minus Venom slicking back from Eddie’s aorta in the middle of him listening to it. That had made him swear very loudly and jump back, clapping a hand over his mouth as he shuffled backwards enough to look down the hall towards the pediatrics unit. Eddie’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter by the time he came back.  
Stress test, updated height and weight tests, and a handful of other procedures saw them all the way through the day and into the evening where Eddie was finally in sweatpants and a T-shirt for sleep.

“So I won’t ask if you’re comfortable because I can’t imagine you are,” Dan began, setting the clipboard aside and folding his arms. “But do you think you’ll be able to sleep at least?”

Eddie shifted a little, testing out the mattress and shrugging. “To be honest, Dan, I’ve slept in worse places. And the sensors aren’t that bad.”

“Yeah, wireless has made this test easier for a lot,” Dan conceded, bending forward and pressing at one of the lead stickers on Eddie’s temple before frowning and glancing at the readout. “I’m going to be honest, Eddie. Your heart sounds good, reads good, and visibly I can find nothing wrong with you. You look healthy, sound healthy. Your temperature, your blood pressure, everything falls in a comfortable range. But your brain and electrical activity outside your heart is all over the place. Your muscular density appears to have changed and I don’t even want to know what results we’d get with further samples like stomach acid and spinal fluid.”

“As long as nothing new you find screams ‘dying again’, we can live with that,” Eddie joked, cracking Dan a reassuring smile as he shuffled back to lay down. He laced his fingers behind his head and Dan snorted a short laugh.

“Yeah okay well, I will see you guys in the morning.” Dan hit a switch and the lights went out, leaving them in a comfortable twilight of silenced monitors and diagnostic lights. “Sleep well.”

For being stuck in a hospital, Eddie slept remarkably well.

 _ **Like a log**_ , Venom supplied as he sat up and stretched, rubbing at his eyes before blinking around at the window. The sun was just coming up, so it must have been around six.

“Yeah, like a log. Guess you’re getting better at metaphors.”

**_Google is a good teacher._ **

Eddie winced. “Yeah, no we’re gonna have a talk about how to go after good sources. Google is an arbitrary teacher.”

Dan appeared a few minutes after they came conscious, and Eddie could only assume that the equipment had alerted him to conscious brain activity.

“Morning, Eddie, Venom,” he greeted, pulling the privacy blinds on the room and sitting in the chair by the bed. “You feeling any different this morning?”

Eddie shook his head, kneading at a knot in his shoulder. “Not really. Just not used to this bed but I slept well. Felt deep.”

Dan made a face and nodded once, eyes trained on the tablet where he had the results. “Yeah. Well, deep is one word for it.”

Eddie frowned a little, picking at the lead stickers before starting to really peel them off. “What do you mean?”

“Well, your brain was active a good portion of the night. Regular dreaming cycles and such, but the rest of your body….” he flipped the tablet around. “I can’t monitor what Venom is doing. Only your body. And all I can think is that Venom must be taking over parts of your metabolic processes because these, Eddie? These readings are for someone who’s about twenty-four hours from death.”

Eddie swallowed, eyes going wide as he reached out and took the tablet. He glanced up at Dan, a spark of alarm churning around his ribcage. He knew some of it was his own, but Venom was clearly distressed. “So what makes you think this is Venom taking over and not me, you know, actually dying?”

“Because we’re having this conversation and the readings I got the last hour you were asleep and into consciousness are too strong. If your low readings were because you were dying, you wouldn’t just wake up and be able to hold a conversation and digest your breakfast. You’d decline more and you’d just stop. The only way I can describe it is that Venom must be taking some of the workload so your body just isn’t reading as fully functioning even though it is and you are.”

Dan set the tablet aside and leaned forward, resting elbows on his knees. “Eddie, when you first got infected, you asked if the parasite could make you climb a tree in record time. Do you still experience unnatural spikes in strength or any other physical abilities?”

“Oh no,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “They’re not spikes anymore. Even without Venom forming around me I can pick up a car now so...that muscle density is probably a start on that front.”

“Honestly that makes more sense than I expected it to,” Dan said, eyebrows jumping at the car comment. “ If Venom has integrated into every bodily system and started supporting them, it explains why you can handle more physical strain than most humans should. It also explains the strange readings even though your brain activity didn’t come even close to shutting down. It got weird at times, but it didn’t ever look like you were in danger of losing your life. Your resting heartrate is...abnormally slow as well.”

Eddie picked his head up at that, peeling away a sticker on his collarbone. “How slow?”

“Slowest it got was seventeen, Eddie.”

His eyes widened and he made a small hissing noise through his teeth. “You serious?”

Dan held up the tablet and tapped the numbers. “Seventeen at two-twenty-three this morning. But not a hint of distress in any of your other systems. Your heart just……” he shrugged. “Didn’t need to beat for long stretches. Everything was flush with oxygen, your temperature was perfect.” He shook his head. “Eddie, far as I can tell Venom went the completely opposite direction with your health and turned into integrated life support. Your heart is definitely not atrophied anymore and in far less danger of stopping than probably anybody I know.”

**_Are you sure?_ **

Venom’s manifestation was sudden and completely against his will, Dan yelled. His tablet went flying and Venom snapped a tendril out and caught it, dropping it back in his startled hands.

“V, that wasn’t nice,” Eddie chastised, frowning at the symbiote. Venom didn’t answer, he was staring at Dan, waiting to be addressed.

“Yes, I’m...I’m sure.” He nodded, breaking eye contact and bending over so he could breathe for a moment. When he picked his head back up he grimaced, like he’d been hoping Venom would disappear while he was getting himself under control. He ran a hand through his hair and got up, setting the tablet aside and straightening his coat before turning back around. “Eddie is in really, really good shape now. You...uh. You did a good job repairing him.”

Venom rippled in pleasure at the comment and Dan gave a little shudder.

“Can I have a copy of those results? I’ll give you my email,” Eddie said, hopping off the bed as Venom retreated back into his body. Dan watched with a morbid fascination, not quite able to help himself as he reached out and touched the spot on Eddie’s shirt Venom had just bled back through.

“Yeah of course...that doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asked.

“No. Sometimes itches a little, but nothing he does hurts,” Eddie said simply, reaching for his jacket. “Not anymore.” He reached out and pat Dan’s shoulder. “Thanks for doing this,” he said sincerely, making eye contact. “You’re a good guy, Dan. We owe you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upon watching Venom for the third time, I noticed that one of the stable hosts had a pulse of 45 while alert, sitting up, and reacting. That makes me think a completely solidified symbiosis at total rest would have an exceptionally low heartbeat. Like, witcher-worthy slow.


	3. Head First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie decides they need more than one kind of doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have been to see quite a few therapists in my life but I am not one and nothing said in this chapter should be taken as psychological advice. If you are struggling with PTSD, depression, or even just mental pain from any number of traumatic experiences, please seek out professional help. 
> 
> It really does make a difference.
> 
> Also, this chapter deals with PTSD and childhood trauma, so warnings there.

_**I’m sorry, Eddie.** _

Eddie lay on his back, closing his eyes as a tear struck down his temple. His chest was heaving, his hand resting on his breastbone as he worked to get his breath back.

“It’s okay, it’s okay buddy,” he assured, murmuring under his breath as wave after wave of overwhelm struck through him.

It had been a week and a half since they'd seen Dan, and probably also a week and a half since they'd slept through the night.

Honestly, he was exhausted, but he knew how trauma worked and it was never an easy fix so despite his frustration he couldn’t be mad at Venom. The poor symbiote was suffering, and he wanted to be better as much as Eddie wanted him to be better.

The problem was no longer his health, or the fear of his health so much as the fact that they’d opened the issue in the first place. As long as Venom had been keeping it to himself and avoiding, the damage had brewed and stayed mostly hidden. With Eddie forcing them both to face what they’d gone through, the attacks had gotten worse and some of Eddie’s own trauma was scraping back at the edges of his skull like nails digging into chalk.

_You are nothing._

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut harder and put both hands over his breastbone, as if the clutching pressure would banish the sudden phantom burn of being split in two. He breathed out and tried to control it, but it was shaky and he could feel his own side of things rising again in an intimidating crest.

_You are **nothing**._

All the logic his 5’ 9” body told him that Riot had said that. Had growled and drooled that onto him as he’d been twitching through amputated death throes, but no matter how much he tried to scrub the words from his mind he kept hearing them in his father’s voice. The memory of Riot’s claws turned into the twisted fingers on his father’s fist as he shook Eddie by the shirt, waving hospital bills and bankruptcy letters like condemnation.

_You are nothing and you will never be anything! This could have gotten us somewhere! Do you see how much you cost me? Do you ever see anything but yourself!?_

Eddie shuddered and turned onto his side, curling up as grief and pain throbbed through him. He felt Venom push wearily through his body and reach tendrils around him, blanketing his back and squeezing tight around his ribs and shoulders.

 ** _We are sick, Eddie_** , Venom said wearily, holding his host as he trembled with tears he was trying to suppress. _**Let us cry, it helps.**_

In the morning, Eddie dragged himself out of bed and he and Venom sat at their kitchen counter in silence for a full half hour, slowly managing an omelette (for Eddie) and chocolate chip pancakes (for Venom). Venom had started complaining at the lack of his own hot drink when Eddie drank coffee, so he had his own mug of hot chocolate as well.

Both host and symbiote were past regular tired at any level, and Eddie decided that he wasn’t willing to let them live like this another day. He’d spent six miserable months with bad coping mechanisms after Anne while he looked for work, and he wasn’t going to put himself or Venom through another round of anything like that.

“Okay,” he said, reaching slowly into his pocket and managing to get his phone out. Venom blinked slowly, picking his head up off of the pancake stack. He hadn’t gotten very far, and that alone made Eddie’s heart clench.

“We tried handling this ourselves, but we need a doctor.”

**_We already talked to Dan._ **

“Different kind of doctor, buddy.”

Eddie sent his emergency vacation text to his boss, and then dialed the number for his old therapist.

“Eddie! How can I help?”

He closed his eyes and swallowed back the lump in his throat, managing to force his voice past tight vocal cords. “Hey, Charity. When can you get me in?”

 _ **What kind of Doctor just talks?**_ Venom asked, settling in Eddie’s diaphragm while Eddie shrugged his jacket on.

“She’s a therapist. It means she knows how to deal with the damage in our head. She won’t be able to talk to you, but if you want to ask her anything just tell me and I’ll ask for you. She should be able to give us ways to help get through this. She helped me when I first moved here, so she knows some of my issues already. Makes it easier.”

 ** _...Humans are very…..trusting._ **Venom remarked, and though his voice was still quieter than usual from weariness, there was another tone Eddie couldn’t quite place.

He frowned, grabbing his keys and helmet. “What do you mean?”

**_Klyntar do not show weakness. The weak spawn get eaten, and fear does not exist. If you are not strong enough to survive and find a good host, you are food._ **

Eddie stopped short mid-locking his apartment, grimacing. “You serious? The strong ones seriously just…” he shuddered.

 _ **Yes**_.

Another gruesome memory from the fight with Riot suddenly came back and Eddie finished locking his apartment with a chill in his gut. When Riot had ripped Venom out the first time, he’d been holding Venom’s mass up in front of his massive mouth like a child would with string candy. At the time, in the middle of the fight, the implications just hadn’t clicked.

“That’s awful,” he couldn’t help croaking, nodding once at one of his neighbors as they shot him a strange look in the hall.

Maybe the couch was cliche, but it was the exact same couch Charity had in her practice years back when he’d first started visiting her and Eddie found it reassuring. He’d been able to process and come back from a lot of stuff with her coaching him on that couch, and even with his new living situation he had faith she could help him again. Him and Venom.

“Eddie, it’s good to see you. Aside from the bags under your eyes you look good,” she said, smiling gently as she sat in a nearby chair with his file in hand. “Let’s get in to what’s stealing your sleep so you can get back to full strength.”

Venom was quiet the entire session. Eddie told Charity about his nightmares, about how a recent case had gone bad after his life had fallen apart and he’d suffered a near death experience.

(“You’ve been seen by a doctor about the physical side of this?”)

(“Yeah. Clean bill, I’m okay now.”)

("Okay but if I find out you're lying to me I'll make you put a quarter in the swear jar and then stare at you with my best mom expression until you pick your phone up and make an appointment.")

“Eddie,” she said near the end of their 90 minutes, pulling her glasses off and wiping at invisible particles with her shirt. “I know how you sound when you’re hiding something and right now, I’m not going to push you to disclose it, but you know how much faster these things heal when you’re honest with me and with yourself.”

Eddie sighed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “Yeah. I know it’s just….the story isn’t only mine to tell and I’m...trying not to betray this other person.”

“So you’re protecting someone. Well, are they in physical danger?”

“No.”

“But you’re worried about them.”

He could feel Venom stir, and he hummed, something he’d found out recently that Venom seemed to like.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Why are you worried? You don’t have to tell me anything that will make you feel like you’ve betrayed their confidence, but this is clearly central to your problem right now.”

“I’m...worried because what I went through they went through with me. But they had a very different childhood and life before we met and they don’t know how to handle what happened to us. And I…..”

“You don’t know how to help them,” she finished for him, nodding in understanding as she put her glasses back on.

"Yeah, I mean. I already tried one thing because we talked about it and I found out they were worried about my health. So they went with me and I got checked out. Problem is, now that we've talked about it the episodes are getting worse and them being strung out is hard on both of us."

“Feeling like you can’t help someone you care about is one of the worst experiences. Watching someone else suffer is always harder than suffering yourself.”

 ** _She’s right_** , Venom said, so softly Eddie barely sensed it. **_I do not want to see you suffer anymore. I...I do not want to cause your suffering anymore._**

That made Eddie’s eyes prickle and he ducked his head, clearing his throat as he rubbed away the feeling.  _No, Venom,_ he thought, dropping his hand from his eyes to touch his breastbone. It had become a contact point of comfort for both of them, and Venom tapped back. 

 _This isn't your fault,_  he tried to convey. _Please d_ _on't blame yourself. Please don't leave._

Venom seemed to understand because he circled their heart in a warm wash of pressure and spread tendrils up the entire inside of Eddie's chest wall. With Venom rooted so securely, Eddie felt like he could take a deep enough breath to speak again, and so with a steadying inhale he asked:

“Okay so, how do I help them?”

“Just, be there. You went through this experience together, which means you know and probably understand what they are feeling and remembering better than anyone else could. Let them talk about what’s still upsetting them, and reassure. The doctor's appointment was a great start, but the mind likes to worry so you'll have to keep re-applying that confirmation that everything is okay until you both internalize it. With time and support, the event will lose its power. It’s past. Do whatever helps both of you realize and believe down to your heart, that it really is past.”

Charity’s phone lit up with their time warning and she tapped the snooze, closing Eddie’s file. “And keep going with your regular routine. Eat, even if you don’t feel like it. Shower. Go for a run. Make plans with other friends, and unless you really need the time to process, don’t call out from work. The more you go through normal life, the more your brain and body will realize that it’s safe enough for normal life to exist again.”

She got up, putting the file in a locking cabinet behind her desk.

“I know you know most of this stuff already, but maybe pass it on to your friend. And if you can’t sleep, at least lay quietly and try to meditate so you get some rest. If it gets really bad, we can talk about medication but I really don’t want to prescribe unless you need it.”

He nodded, getting up and taking his coat from the couch arm. “Thank you, Charity. I know you stayed late to see me, and that means a lot.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I do my job for the same reason you do yours, Eddie. I just want to see you both get better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comics, Eddie was hit by a car when very young and the cost of medical care ruined his dad. His dad hated him ever since. I decided to keep that backdrop because I think some stuff in the film (or at least the deleted scenes) hints at it and it makes a lot of Eddie's behaviors more potent. 
> 
> I'm sorry, the next chapter is not going to be so angsty I promise.


	4. Heart After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Venom make progress, and meet someone else who could use their help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a real hospital talked about in this chapter that I know only from Googling. To my knowledge, they're a wonderful network of pediatric hospitals with nary a trouble reputation wise, so anything about them in this chapter is just fiction for the sake of my plot.

Touch.

Ironically, touch was one of the biggest things that helped ground Venom when he got nervous. Touch and exertion, though the exertion had to be all on Eddie’s power rather than the combined hunting strength when Venom surrounded them and took over.

After talking about it a little, it made sense. Venom felt reassured when Eddie actively responded to him. It meant he was conscious and able to react. If Venom pressed up against Eddie’s breastbone, Eddie would touch or press back, and not only did the pressure soothe the symbiote’s nerves, the way Eddie’s brain responded was a great comfort. Venom could sense--in some ways _see_ the nerve clusters light and fire, so that visual reaction to touch was a reassurance that Eddie’s brain and nervous system were healthy and alive.

When Riot had killed him, Eddie’s body had still been manipulatable, it just hadn’t helped or done much on its own. Venom still took him over to go hunting, and helped if there was danger or something beyond what Eddie could handle physically, but Eddie began running and swimming and going to the weight room on his own.

Exercise seemed the most effective long-term method when it came to staving off attacks--for both of them. The endorphins Eddie’s body created from the workout were soothing and put them both on a temporary high, and the tangible proof that his heart could still beat fast and strong if it needed to seemed to really help Venom.

“Okay, if that’s what’s going to help, that’s what we’ll do,” Eddie promised.

So he bought a gym membership, and they went three or four times a week. When he had to skip the cardio, he’d buy a coffee with extra espresso. It wasn’t a good long-term fix, but he knew his body could handle it and it helped soothe Venom into an easy doze when he was stuck in long, boring meetings.

The touches, the routine, became second-nature. He’d sleep with his arms crossed on the bus, that pressure across his chest a tangible protection that Venom liked to subtly pool underneath. He’d rub at his breastbone, drum against his ribs as a habit, even started tracing lazy, meaningless lattice work patterns across a good portion of the injury site from Riot’s impaling.

They both got more sleep and had less nightmares, and Venom was sounding more and more like himself.

**_We are going to eat that guy if he pops his gum one more time._ **

**_Have you ever eaten a pigeon? They look crunchy and nice. Like cheese puffs._ **

**_I want to go to the park and climb the redwoods. For our birthday._ **

**_That new diner has all you can eat pancakes on Wednesdays. WE’RE GOING._ **

**_We should go see Anne, she and Dan have been busy and we are getting ignored._ **

“They’re not ignoring us,” Eddie said patiently, reviewing his notes on the cable car. He tapped his pen against his bottom lip, ankle propped up on his opposite knee. They had a few more stops before the pediatrics hospital and it wasn’t crowded, so he was tucked comfortably in a back corner able to talk freely to Venom without issue. He’d started wearing a Bluetooth earpiece most of the time so he could talk more easily without the attention."

“Dan has a big surgery and Anne is out of town visiting her sister."

**_No, she got back yesterday._ **

“Yeah,” Eddie said, circling a point on his notes. “And nobody wants company the day after a big trip, V. Traveling is exhausting.”

**_We should get them to go paintballing with us._ **

Eddie snorted. “We get shot at enough.”

**_But Dan does not._ **

His eyes crinkled and he chuckled, tucking his notepad away. “Yeah ok, that would be fun.”

_**I will sign us up.** _

“Sometimes I feel like teaching you how to use a computer was about the worst lapse in judgment I’ve ever had.”

_**This is our stop.** _

“So it is.”

They got off at the corner and Eddie double checked to make sure he had everything.

**_You did not forget our phone or the press badge, stop checking._ **

“Don’t tell me how to remember my stuff.”

The campus was a few blocks away from the cable car stop, but soon they were standing across the street from a colorful building full of windows and get-well paint.

He took the hospital in for a moment, already busy making mental notes for his article. This one was less looking for corruption and more actually trying to bring attention to hospitals that were struggling with support for unjust claims. His name had weight again--he wanted to use it for some building in-between the tearing down.

_**Pediatrics. This is where the small humans go when they are sick? The children.** _

“Yeah. UCSF. This is the Oakland campus--these hospitals have cancer and cardiology centers that had some bad press unjustly. We’re here to fix that.”

He felt Venom ripple with approval. **_Good_**.

Ever since he’d settled on Earth and started with his understanding of good people vs the bad, Venom had taken an uncommonly strong liking towards children. It had gone past simple fascination or curiosity, and to Eddie’s great surprise Venom never talked about seeing them as snack-sized or for eating at all. On the contrary: his symbiote had become almost immediately and fiercely protective of children.

They’d hunted down and eaten every registered and free-roaming pedophile in all of San-Francisco in their first two weeks after Venom deciding children were his favorite kind of human right after Eddie himself.

The hospital director met him at the front lobby, and unlike most of the reports he did, she looked genuinely glad to see him. She reached out and shook his hand. “Mr. Brock, thank you for coming.”

“It’s my pleasure, really, and call me Eddie. Can you give me the tour?”

She smiled warmly. “Gladly.”

She took him around the entire campus, explaining what had happened, offering him access to anything and everything that wouldn’t violate patient privacy and would help back up his defense of them. In some ways he felt like he was doing Anne’s job, only his defense was to the public eye instead of in a courtroom.

“I imagine you’re busy so I won’t keep you any longer, but here’s a meal voucher for the cafeteria and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

“I took the whole day for this so, it’s really no trouble,” Eddie said, gesturing with his notepad in hand. “Thank you for taking time out of your day to walk me around, I know you have better things to be getting to, so I really appreciate it.”

“We need this, Eddie,” she said softly, and he could see the profound weariness the false allegations had caused. “So this is the least I can do if you’re going to help our kids.”

“Hey,” he said, putting a reassuring hand on her upper arm. “We’re going to fix this. Okay? We’re going to fix this. At the end of the day, people really do want to know the truth.”

Her expression faltered and Eddie followed his instincts, pulling her into a tight hug.

He was on the second floor of the cardiology unit looking over artwork donated by the local middle schools when there was a tug on his sleeve and he paused, looking down with surprise. A little girl sitting in a wheelchair had caught his wrist, her dark eyes looking uncertain and distressed.

“Are you sick too?” she asked, her voice small.

“Hey,” he said gently, turning to face her fully and dropping into a slow crouch so they were more at eye level. His brow was furrowed and he turned the wrist she’d grabbed so he could hold her hand. She was probably no more than seven, her small, brown hand unusually cool in his own. His heart twisted. “What makes you ask that?”

“The magazines say you are sick,” she said quietly, and he was almost startled to see tears pooling in her eyes. She sniffed. “And that….and that you might…”

“Hey, hey shhh,” Eddie soothed, leaning forward and pulling her into a hug. She sniffed against his shirt and he looked up to see her mother standing frozen in the middle of the room, a look of mixed shock and chagrin on her face. She was holding a gossip magazine slack between her hands, and suddenly everything clicked.

He hadn’t been in the spotlight for a little while, but in his own way, Eddie was a celebrity. He’d had paparazzi on his back before, taking pictures of his apartment, of him and Anne without their consent, speculating about the women he talked to for cases and projecting claims of infidelity all over pages four and eight. With his disgrace being so sudden it had also been public. He should have known that suddenly coming back to journalism wouldn’t have been under the radar.

Slowly, he let the girl go and stood, moving around her chair and holding his hand out to the mother.

“May I?”

Wordless, she handed it over and he turned it around, a controlled breath leaving him through his nose as he looked at the front page. A stalker-blurry photo of him was splashed on the upper right corner of the cover, catching him exactly when he must have been getting up and happened to be touching his chest in the way he’d been doing to reassure Venom.

Turning to the article, his jaw clenched as he glanced across a half-dozen out of context photos--all with garish text speculating.

**Is Eddie Brock DYING?**

**Our own reporters have noticed something strange about the way our corporation hunting white-knight has been acting. Could a hidden drug habit or heart problem be what caused his episode six months back? Maybe that heart of gold is finally going to give out. Or maybe his heart has been rotten all along and there’s some karma coming for him.**

He closed the magazine and handed it back to the mother, glancing around the hospital room that was obviously well lived-in. A long term illness then, and considering the girl was in the cardiology unit, it wasn’t a far leap to think she was probably waiting on a transplant.

Other magazines, older magazines with worn corners and pictures he had known were being taken sat on the window-cill and though the TV was muted, he recognized footage from an early report in his career. So they were fans, and from the distressed way the girl was watching him, he didn’t think it was just the mother. Maybe the girl was the one who liked watching him and the mother was just one of many who picked up gossip magazines without a second thought.

Part of him understood: reading about other people’s problems tended to help you forget your own, but paparazzi were parasites and Eddie had never hidden his dislike for the magazines that fed them. They weren’t news, they were rumor mills and he’d seen too many people psychologically and career damaged by the repercussions.

He met the mother’s eyes, and didn’t try to hide his look of disapproval. “This won’t help her,” he said quietly, and the mother looked away, letting the magazine fall to her side.

The girl had turned her chair and was still watching him, her uncertainty making Venom stir as well.

**_Reassure her, Eddie. Like you do for me._ **

Eddie touched his breastbone for the briefest moment as an acknowledgment and then knelt in front of the girl again. He rest his forearm on her chair, offering his hand, which she took. “What’s your name?”

“Millie.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Millie, I’m Eddie. I see you like watching my show.”

She sniffed and nodded, squeezing his hand a little as she wiped once at her eyes, all without letting go of the stuffed cat she was cuddling. “I like the one with the dogs the best.”

He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He remembered that case. “I liked that one too. Did you know all those dogs got taken to good homes? One of them lives two blocks away from me and sometimes I see her at the park with her new mommy.”

Millie smiled shyly and nodded, squeezing her cat. “That’s good.”

“Yeah. It’s very good. Hey, Millie?”

She looked at him, and he met her eyes to make sure she was listening and would believe him. “I want you to know from me that I’m not sick. Okay? I know those magazines can be scary and maybe you heard your mom talking about me but I’m doing just fine.”

Her eyes flit over his face, like she was still uncertain, and he sat up a little, glancing around the room. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he raised a hand to catch a doctor’s attention right as she was moving past the door.

“Hey, can I borrow that for a minute?” he asked, gesturing for the doctor’s stethoscope.

She looked surprised, but it only took her a glance to see that something important was going on so she stepped into the room and handed it over.

“Thank you,” he said, turning the instrument around in his hands and focusing back on Millie. “I know you’re smart because only smart people watch my show, so I bet you can tell me what this is.”

She smiled and nodded. “It’s a stethoscope.”

“That’s right. Good pronunciation, by the way, that’s a long word. And you did that even missing some teeth.”

Her nose wrinkled as her smile got a little bigger and her tongue poked out of the gap her missing baby tooth had left. “I got a quarter from the tooth fairy and mom says I’ll get another tooth so I don’t mind.”

“Yeah? Well you’re rich now and you’ll get better teeth so I’d say you got a good deal.”

“I bought a gumball.”

He raised his eyebrows. “See? Great deal. I'd trade my tooth for a gumball too, especially since mine are all crooked. See?" He bared his teeth playfully at her and she giggled. "You’ll have to buy me one next time, deal?”

She smiled and nodded. “Okay.”

“I’ll hold you to that. For now though, I gotta ask you a question so I can give Doctor Snow her stethoscope back. I bet the doctors have listened to your heart pretty much every day with one of these, but have you ever gotten to listen to one of theirs?”

She nodded again. “Yes doctor Miller let me try hers.”

“Awesome, then you’re already a pro. I want you to take the pieces here,” he said, holding it out to her so she could take it. “And I want you to listen to mine, can you do that?”

Seeming excited with the assignment, she took the stethoscope and put it on, leaning forward in her wheelchair to eagerly put the bell on Eddie’s chest. He brought his hand up and covered hers with it to steady her, and waited with a soft smile while her expression changed from a furrowed brow of concentration to one of wide-eyes as she looked up at him.

“Mr. Brock your heart is loud.”

“Yeah?” he asked softly, careful not to hurt her ears. “Can you feel it too?”

She frowned a little and he shifted her hand over just an inch until she gave a decisive nod. “Yep. It feels loud too.” He couldn’t help a soft chuckle.

“Pretty cool, huh?” he asked after a moment more, letting go of her hand. She didn’t move for a few seconds, her eyes cast aside. He could see the gears turning as she thought about what she was hearing. When she sat back and took the stethoscope off, he accepted it back and gave the doctor a grateful nod as he returned it.

“So what do you think, Doctor Millie?” he asked, making her wrinkle her nose again. “Do you think I’m ok?”

She seemed to think about it for a moment and then nodded. “Yes. I’m glad.”

He offered her a smile. “Me too. I _was_ sick for a little while but I got better.”

“So if you’re not sick,” she said, her little brow furrowed “Why do you touch your chest like it hurts?”

“Because my friend is sick,” he said, tapping at his chest. “In here. And it’s my way of trying to help him.”

She raised a dubious eyebrow. “You have a friend in your chest?”

Eddie had to suppress his real reaction to that and instead only smiled more, giving a soft chuckle. “Everyone you care about lives in your heart, didn’t you know that?”

Her expression fell and she fidgeted. “My heart is sick. The doctors say I need a new one. Will….will all my friends leave when my heart does?”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not. They’ll live in your new heart and you’ll have even more room for them than you do now. You already have a good heart, Millie. And I can tell because you cared about me and you hadn’t even met me. All the doctors are going to do when you get a new heart is prove what I already know.”

She smiled shyly then and he offered her his fist. She closed her own and bumped their knuckles.

“I have to go and write an article now, but would you mind if I came back and visited you again?” he asked, glancing up to make eye contact with her mom. Her mom looked surprised, but gave a silent shake of the head in permission.

“I would like that, Mr. Brock.”

He looked back at Millie, eyes crinkling with another soft smile. “You can call me Eddie. And I would like that too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, writing kids is hard but I did try.


	5. Progress Backwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They go back to visit Millie, but Venom is struggling with being forced to hide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so out of hand at this point. I've written 37 pages and there's gonna be one more chapter at least.

_**Testing is unnecessary. I don’t know why we had to wait for this paper to tell us that we are healthy.** _

“Yeah, we know that, but these doctors have a building full of sick kids to protect and no way to know that I have an immune system backed by an alien now.”

 _ **We could tell them**_ , Venom suggested helpfully, and Eddie snorted.

“Yeah, if we want to get locked up and dissected and never allowed near children again.”

Venom sunk a little lower on Eddie’s body and Eddie glanced at him in the mirror, his expression flickering with regret. “Hey, sorry. I’m sorry buddy…”

**_No...you are right, Eddie._ **

Eddie’s heart clenched and even though he knew there was no fixing it, he felt the need to try and take it back anyway. “Venom..”

Venom ducked his head and sunk back into Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie watched the dark spot fade through the fabric of his t-shirt. He sighed, pressing a hand into his breastbone as he felt Venom move inward and swirl around his heart to create a velvety nest.

“I didn’t mean that, V,” he murmured. “I know you love the kids, I just don’t know how we could introduce you without putting all of us in real danger. I wish we could but--”

He stopped talking because there was really nothing he could say that would help and the disappointment rolling off of Venom’s presence was palpable. Eddie worked his jaw, feeling helpless and frustrated.

After bonding with Millie and promising to come back, Eddie had kept his promise so often he’d gotten to know some of the staff on a first name basis. They’d gotten attached to Millie, and Venom used to pour elation through their body every Wednesday when they’d go to visit. More recently though, Venom had quieted, and while he still seemed excited about seeing Millie, there was a deepening melancholy from being constantly forced into a passive role.

The situation was only going to get worse now that Eddie had been sent for testing so he could be cleared to interact with kids in the weaker immune areas. Millie was pretty safe as long as Eddie wasn’t actively sick, but she wanted him to come with her when she sat in the playroom with the other kids and as that could expose Eddie to cancer patients and a bunch of other kids with very little immunity, the hospital had requested he be tested for blood-borne disease and other factors that could make him dangerous.

Luckily, Dan had a friend in the blood draw department.

Eddie splashed his face with water and carded his fingers through his hair, shaking drops onto the mirror. Goosebumps broke out across his shoulders and he groped for a towel, brain churning over the problem. He really didn’t like Venom so unhappy, and as this was the first non-violent thing that his symbiote had really shown interest in, part of Eddie really wanted to foster that. Let Venom value more of humanity than just Eddie himself. It would be good for both of them.

And, he thought, it might be good for the kids. Kids were open-minded. They got told stories about monsters under their beds and clothes and around corners waiting to punish them. Why not let them meet the real-life monster who was deeply upset because he was forced to hide from them?

There had to be a middle ground somewhere between getting locked in Area 51 under surveillance and Venom hiding for the rest of their life. He just hadn’t figured it out yet.

Eddie moved into the living room, picking a package off the coffee table. He turned the box over, distracted with problem solving while part of him thought about they still needed to wrap Millie’s gift.

**_Eddie?_ **

“Mmm?”

_**...Can I wrap her stethoscope?** _

Eddie blinked, drawing all of his brain back into the present. “Oh, yeah. Sure. You mind if I eat while you do then?”

Venom manifested out of his shoulders and turned his huge, white eyes on him. **_Do I ever mind if you eat?_**

“Okay yeah dumb question sorry, let me just…” he stepped over the table, still holding the special-order stethoscope in one hand. It was pink, sized to fit her tiny ears, and engraved with her name. She’d seemed so reassured by the moment with Snow’s stethoscope and shown so much interest in being a doctor herself some day, (Or a doctor reporter, a profession she insisted that she would invent if she had to. Eddie had needed to excuse himself after that for a moment so she wouldn’t see him trying not to cry) that Eddie decided she needed one of her own.

Setting it aside, he made himself a sandwich and grabbed a glass, filling it at the tap before thinking twice, glancing at his stomach, deciding the working out was holding up fine, and adding a bag of chips that he carried between his teeth. At that point he handed the stethoscope off to Venom and sat back on the couch, settling his legs long-ways and crossing his ankles while Venom got to work with the wrapping materials sitting on the coffee table.

Watching Venom use his sticky, semi-tentacled mass to manipulate, cut, and wrap the paper was a pretty fascinating experience and Eddie ate with one eye on the production the entire time.

**What color should we use? For the bow.**

“How about purple?” he suggested, sucking salt off his fingers. He gestured with his free hand, the empty plate resting on his stomach. “That one with the iridescent side.”

Venom considered, hummed with approval, and finished off the wrapping.

“Alright, help me inventory. Key, present, helmet.”

_**ID badge and stupid test results.** _

“Right. Stupid test results are in the backpack and ID badge is in the bathroom.”

**_I don’t understand why you keep things in the room with three places for water to come out and ruin them._ **

“Humans do a lot of stuff that doesn’t make sense,” Eddie said, grabbing his backpack and checking for his hoodie and gloves. It would probably be chilly by the time they left the hospital if the last few visits were any indication. “Thought you’d be used to it by now,” he added, grabbing his badge off the corner of the sink. He tucked it into his breast pocket and glanced back over the apartment once more as they headed for the door.

_**You, Eddie, are now more than human. You can stop being stupid anytime you want.** _

“Says the guy who wanted my diet to be carbs dipped in chocolate and brains. Your species goes to planets just to eat them. That doesn’t make sense.”

_**Is that not what you humans are doing to this planet?** _

“Yeah you know, can’t argue with you there.”

The drive to the hospital had become second nature, and Eddie fell back into thinking about the problem of Venom having to hide on his way there. He was honestly considering trying to sneak Venom out if only to meet Millie, but he’d have to do it carefully. Scaring a kid who was waiting on a transplant was the last thing Eddie wanted on his conscience, but Millie had also shown incredible resilience and empathy. His gut told him that if he did explain Venom and introduce them, Millie could handle it and would probably embrace the symbiote with as much love as she’d poured onto Eddie before she even knew him.

He was careful to conceal these thoughts from Venom, and while it was a relief not to have to try too hard, it was also concerning that he could feel Venom curled up and far away despite being a very present weight in his chest. The symbiote was withdrawn, accepting his situation and hurting in silence.

He really didn’t want this to continue.

“Eddie!!”

Millie’s greeting was so excited, Eddie felt a rush of pure joy flood his system and he grinned back, dropping to one knee and opening his arms as Millie ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck. She wasn’t up and around often, and running was something she really wasn’t supposed to be doing, but on her good days not even a stern look from her favorite nurse could stop her almost jumping on Eddie with what energy she could muster.

He held her tight, feeling her tiny heart rabbiting and skipping against his chest. The feeling made him nervous but her grin was too bright to let it sully the mood.

“Hey! How’s my Dr. Reporter?”

“They took my blood today,” she declared, letting him go and thrusting her arm out to show a bandage holding a cotton ball to the crook of her elbow. “I was very brave.”

“Wow, yes you were. Must not have taken very much, you have more energy than I do today.”

“She got grilled peanut butter and banana for lunch,” her mom said, smiling warmly as Eddie stood. “So she’s in a good mood.”

Despite the lightness of Millie’s good days, Eddie saw the strain weighing on Tanya’s shoulders. He’d been there for some not so good days too, and while Tanya had found healthier ways to deal with her daughter’s illness than gossip and avoidance, there was no easy way to watch her daughter suffer.

She’d confessed one rainy night while Millie slept in an exhausted pile of blankets and stuffed animals that she didn’t even know how to pray anymore because how could she ask God to heal her daughter when that meant praying for another child to die? She’d broken down crying in the end, and Eddie had held her until weariness finally conquered her as well.

“She got peanut butter, sounds like you need a peppermint mocha and it’s a perfect day,” he said, embracing her warmly.

For the briefest moment she weakened in his grip like she’d been holding herself up all morning, and he only held her a little closer and whispered that it was okay. A few moments later, and she straightened up, pulling away with her head held high and her hope back on her face. Eddie was reminded briefly of Maria and the way she’d shown so much courage in so much suffering, and he squeezed Tanya’s shoulder before letting go completely.

“Eddie, are you going to meet my friends today?” Millie asked, stepping on her wheelchair’s brakes with an expert stomp before climbing into it. She reached down and disengaged them, and Eddie’s chest ached a little at how confident she’d become with the equipment. She handled wires and monitors and oxygen masks like most kids handled crayons and basketballs at her age, and while the familiarity was far from bothering her, it made Eddie sad.

“That’s the plan,” he said, nodding. “I have something for you first though. Call it a new toy.”

He slipped his backpack off of his shoulder and pulled the present out. Millie reached out curiously to accept it. When she touched the bow very gently, Eddie felt Venom stir and swell with pleasure.

**_She likes it._ **

Eddie smiled, brushing his fingers across his breastbone. _Of course she does,_ he tried to say.

Even admiring the paper and taking more care than Eddie had ever seen a kid use on a present, Millie made short work of the paper and when she saw what was inside her eyes went wide. “This is mine?” she asked, staring at Eddie.

He smiled. “Open it, check.”

She lifted the lid, revealing the stethoscope perfectly tucked into shaped foam. The chest piece glittered in the sunlight casting through her window, and she picked it up, eyes wider as she touched the engraving.

“It’s got your name on it, so I’d say that’s yours. And--so is this,” he said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a notebook. “This is the exact kind of notebook I always carry for my cases. It fits in every pocket and the paper is water and fire resistant so people have a hard time getting rid of the evidence you collect.” He held the notebook out to her, along with one of his favorite pens. “And this pen has only written one thing so far, which was your name on the wrapping paper. It’s up to you what you write next.”

She took the notebook, handling it with even more awe. She was so gentle Eddie could have given her a crystal rose instead and it would have thrived.

“Thank you,” she said, turning to very carefully tuck the notebook and pen into the colorful bag that hung off her wheelchair. The stethoscope, she looped around her neck, before rolling herself to the door where she could see her reflection in the glass. She puffed her tiny chest out and grinned with her (new) missing tooth, beaming back at Eddie.

“You’re my first patient!” she declared. “Come here.”

Eddie laughed, giving her a playful salute. “Yes ma’am. Just tell me where you want me.”

For the next hour, Millie listened to _everything_. She listened to Eddie’s heart first (Venom stayed very still), then his lungs, then got excited when Eddie showed her how to turn the head around and use the other side. This new information meant she had to listen to his heart and lungs again. His stomach, still working through his lunch, made a rather loud noise in the middle of her listening to his lungs and she lit up in an entirely different way, a giggle breaking through her play-seriousness.

This lead to her finding and trying to mimic all the other weird noises Eddie’s guts decided to make. Trying to out fart-noise each other turned into a contagious giggle fit, her sitting on his thigh while the stethoscope was held to his stomach, him trying to stop snickering as she loudly told his guts and then him to “shhh!”.

Her mother, favorite nurse, consulting cardiologist, and the refrigerator where they kept Tanya’s sparkling water next to the pudding cups all got the same treatment.

Having exhausted all the listening points in her room, Millie was eager to head to the play area where she and Eddie had intended to go significantly earlier. Eddie was just about to follow Millie down the hall when Tanya caught his wrist and squeezed it, offering him a soft smile.

“Thank you. I don’t think she’s felt this good in a long time.”

Parents and a few nurses hovered around the playroom to ensure nobody needed help, but they were easy to forget once Eddie was on the floor with the kids. Colorful mats, toys everywhere and some distance from the machinery and monitors made it easy to forget they were in a hospital at all.

Once Millie rolled onto the mat and announced him, (This is my friend, Eddie! He was on TV and he has a friend that lives in his chest!) He was quickly grabbed by the hand on both sides and ushered into their midst, all while being peppered with questions.

“Are you famous?”

“Uh, maybe a little?”

“Do you have a mansion?”

He barked a laugh and shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“Millie says you’re best friends. Can we be best _best_ friends?”

“I’d love to be friends with all of you.”

Inside, Eddie could feel Venom almost pacing like a mix between a frustrated tiger and an over excited puppy. It was a bizarre sensation, and while he really did feel bad about Venom needing to stay undercover he really didn’t want to get queasy.

He pressed a hand against his stomach in a silent plea for Venom to _just please calm down a little._

One of the kids saw his slight grimace and frowned, tiny brow creasing.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Eddie glanced up at her, taking in the wires poking out from under her gown, and the feeding tube still taped into her tiny nose, and he swallowed, nodding. “Yeah, yeah I’m okay sweetheart.”

She studied him for a moment longer, and Eddie felt a great weight in his chest. Someone so small should not have such an intimate knowledge of pain empathy.

“I am his doctor,” Millie declared, holding up her stethoscope.

“Wow, where did you get that?”

“It’s mine.”

“It is not!”

 “It is!” Millie insisted, leaning over as the kids crowded her wheelchair and she showed them all her name. Even the kids Eddie was certain couldn’t read yet were exclaiming or nodding like they thought that made them wise. He rest his cheek on his fist, watching them with a smile.

Millie was beaming as she showed off her notebook and taught the other kids how to use the stethoscope.

“Here, put it on this way,” she was saying, bending over a little boy who was wearing more bracelets than Eddie--all color coded for different warnings. “Now put it on your chest. Like Doctor Snow.”

Eddie watched as the boy’s face frowned in concentration and then lit up with a grin when the stethoscope worked.

“Eddie has a very loud heart,” Millie declared proudly, almost like she’d made it that way. “He let me listen to his first.”

They all wanted turns listening to themselves and each other. Something about it being their size seemed to have turned a tool that might be a reminder of their illnesses into a toy, and Eddie was grateful. It didn’t take long before the stethoscope got rotated in with the stuffed animals and strips of cloth from the costume box and they had a full-blown vet clinic set up.

“Eddie, you are my nurse.” Millie declared, sitting proudly in her chair with the stethoscope slung around her neck.

Vet clinic turned into police and robbers which turned into a nerf war when one of the kids dug five colorful darts out of the bottom of the toy box. Eddie was scrambling for his own gun and dart when one of the kids shot him in the side. The dart struck him between the ribs and he clasped at the ‘wound’ gasping dramatically.

“I’ve been-- betrayed,” he wheezed, crawling over to Millie’s chair where she was giggling, the offending nerf gun still held in both hands. “How could you?” he asked, punctuating the question with a heavy thud of him hitting the floor. He lay there, heaving two more exaggerated breaths before going still.

“Eddie,” Millie giggled, clambering out of her chair and sitting on the floor next to him. He cracked and eye open to peer at her and then quickly shut it, making her giggle all the more.

“You’re not dead,” she insisted, pushing on his shoulder. He went limp and let her roll him over, laying flat on his back with his eyes closed.

“Yes I am,” he said. “You shot me.”

She sat difinitively on his stomach, forcing an ‘ooph’ out of him as he tensed up belatedly to protect his intestines.

“There. You made a noise.”

“Because you sat on me and pushed all the air out of my lungs,” he argued, all while keeping his eyes shut.

“You can’t talk if you’re dead,” she said insistently, folding her arms.

He peeked at her again. “How do you know? Maybe I’m a zombie.” He quirked an eyebrow, and started sitting up slowly.

“Zombies don’t talk either!” Millie said, pushing at his chest as she was forced off of him and he leaned over her, groaning.

“Yes we dooo we say things like braiiiii **nnn _ssssss._ ”**

Eddie clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes going wide as Venom’s voice infiltrated his own. Millie, though, hadn’t seemed to notice. She was laughing too hard, still busy pushing at his chest.

“No!” she squealed. “No brains!”

Heart pounding, Eddie glanced over at the other adults, but they were absorbed in talk among themselves or in watching the other children. Nobody seemed to have noticed the slip.

“Venom,” Eddie whispered, desperately. “Please, man…we’re gonna get kicked out if they think I’m possessed.”

**_Sorry, Eddie….._ **

Millie’s giggling was under control and she was pushing less insistently, looking suddenly very tired. Eddie had seen this fatigue wall hit her before and he picked her up, helping her back into her wheelchair. “Hey, alright, let’s get you back into your room huh? Probably about time for another pudding anyway.”

She always took her medication with pudding, and seemed less shy about it when the actual medicine was left out of the conversation.

Saying goodbye to the other kids, Eddie took Millie back to her room, making eye contact with her mom who immediately saw her fatigue and went for a pudding cup. While Tanya got the medication together, Eddie carefully scooped Millie up and carried her to the bed, holding her easily while he pulled the sheets back and then got her settled.

For her age, she was far too light, and as he pulled up the blankets Eddie wondered how much longer she’d have to wait. She was getting weaker before his eyes, and it honestly scared him to watch.

“I’m cold,” Millie mumbled, looking imploringly up at Eddie after she accepted the spoonful of pudding and medication from her mother. “Are you going home now?”

The supposed non-sequitur comments made perfect sense to Eddie and he swallowed a lump, shaking his head. “No, I can stay all day if you want. Mind if I sit?”

She shook her head and carefully, avoiding the nest of wires and blankets, Eddie got into the bed with her, resting his arm around her when she immediately snuggled into his chest. Sleepily, she pulled her stethoscope free and put it back on, tucking her head into Eddie’s shoulder while she put the chest piece back on his sternum.

In silence, for so long Eddie thought she’d fallen asleep, Millie listened to the gentle sounds of his heart and lungs working. Even Venom was stirring carefully, and even though Eddie figured she could probably hear it, the poor symbiote had been so quiet all day he just didn’t have the heart to ask him again to stay still.

“Eddie?”

Surprised she was still awake, Eddie turned his head towards her. “Yeah?”

“I hope my heart sounds like yours when I get a new one.”

“You do?”

She nodded, her expression far away, the stethoscope still on his chest. “I want to sound brave inside like you do.”

“Oh, Millie….” Eddie said, brow furrowing as he held her a little tighter. “You’re already so brave inside, I can’t possibly be better.”

Eddie left after dark with a heavy heart and a troubled mind. It hadn’t taken long once he’d started talking to Tanya to find out that Millie’s dad was just not in the picture, and almost as quickly as Millie had attached to him as a safe male presence, he’d grown fond of her in turn.

 ** _Millie is running out of time_** , Venom said softly as they walked back to the motorcycle.

“I know, buddy. I know she is.”

Ignoring the potential for onlookers or cameras, Venom manifested and looked at Eddie as he sat back on the bike, helmet still between his hands.

_**What if we helped her?** _

“How?” he asked, settling the helmet on the gas tank. “What can we do? This isn’t like a drug ring where we can just eat the problem.”

**_No, but her body is weak because her heart is failing. We have some experience in that situation._ **

“Yeah, with my heart. Where are you going with this? You can’t jump hosts you’d kill her. And you don’t even know if she’d be compatible, right? That’s not something you can just look at and tell.”

**_No. But I may not have to be compatible. I could simply be a conduit._ **

Eddie frowned. “For what?”

_**Your body is strong, Eddie. You have me to support us. Millie’s body is not, but she functions the same way you do. I can connect all of us. For a time, your body can support Millie’s, the same way I support you.** _

“Wait….you’re saying you could turn me into….organic life support?”

Venom blinked, ducking his head in a nod. **_I can cycle some of her blood through your body. Let your organs help to filter and to heal. I can help her heart until they find a new one._**

He considered, weighing everything in his mind. “Are you sure you know enough about humans now to pull something like that off? What about blood types. We might not be compatible.”

**_I can probably defend us if you are not, but if you are, we could help her._ **

“We could also kill the poor kid from shock.”

Venom rippled unhappily. **_Let me talk to her, Eddie. Please._**

For a long moment they made eye contact, Eddie warring with himself. Venom was never this polite, and he knew the only reason he was restraining himself this time was for Millie’s sake. If they were going to do this, they had to be on the same page about how it was going to happen.

The image of Millie’s weakening body curled up in the warm spot he’d left when he got up was all it took to switch his mind. “Alright. The next time we visit, it’ll really be both of us.”


End file.
